In praise of SWAT 4’s ‘protect and serve’ design

SWAT 4 is now available on GOG.com. Mull that over for a minute. You no longer have to pay hundreds of dollars for a rare boxed copy of the game on an auction site to experience one of the best tactical police shooters ever created. The 2005 title from Irrational Games and Sierra was exceedingly hard to find in legitimate ways, but now you can get the gold version bundled with The Stetchkov Syndicate expansion in just a few clicks. Progress!

Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege may be the modern choice for cops versus robbers action, but SWAT 4 comes from a design that emphasized safety and procedure over slamming through floors with explosives and unlocking cosmetic helmets. In single player or cooperative scenarios, SWAT 4 is all about slowly inching forward, peeking around corners, and moving in assault teams through claustrophobic environments while trying to apprehend or neutralize bad guys. You can lose a mission for shooting enemies if they’re not actively threatening you or civilians! Arrest and subdue, not indiscriminate killing, is the order of the day. Imagine abiding by that rule as you rush through the chaos of Rainbow Six Siege’s wall-busting and grenade spam.

GOG.com tracked down a couple of the original folks from Irrational that worked on the game. The interview touches on a few of the choices the team made in development that help SWAT 4 stand the test of time.

Authenticity drove everything, and to that end we learned a lot from our consultant and retired LA SWAT officer, Ken Thatcher. I remember we showed him game footage and he immediately called out the problem of having your gun at your eyes – remember, this was pre-iron sights – because it reduced your vision. It especially bothered him that your gun was sometimes aimed at fellow officers. “You never point the barrel of your weapon at anything you don’t want to die,” he told us, which prompted us to add the low-ready animation, automatically dipping your gun when it panned past another officer.

SWAT 4: Gold Edition on GOG.com comes with The Stetchkov Syndicate add-on campaign and multiplayer is possible through LAN or direct connection.